Birkbeck / IVAR seminar - 10th March 2010. Does size really matter?
Dr. Jenny Phillimore and Ben Cairns & Marilyn Taylor
Dr. Jenny Phillimore: ’Small scale, community and voluntary action: the role of experiential knowledges in shaping action and activity’
This presentation is based upon some of the findings of interviews with community and voluntary sector experts looking at the role, function and ways of working of small scale, so called, “below the radar” third sector activity. It finds that small scale activity across a wide range of thematic areas operates in a distinct fashion based upon local, specific and experiential knowledges.
Ben Cairns & Marilyn Taylor: ‘Mix, match or meddle? The challenges of supporting small voluntary organisations’
Part One of this presentation will address the distinctive challenges of organisation and management faced by small voluntary and community organisations (VCOs). Based on fieldwork in sixty VCOs, a tentative framework of 'support needs' will be proposed. Part Two will draw on recent national and international work - for, amongst others, BIG, JRF and Capacitybuilders - to consider whether, how and when these needs might best be supported, through both 'capacity building' and 'community development'.
Speakers:
Dr Jenny Phillimore is a lecturer at the Institute of Applied Social Studies and investigator at the TSRC, School of Social Policy, the University of Birmingham. She has led a number of major projects looking at the ways in which refugees’ skills and experience can be accredited and documented. Jenny is co-author of, ‘New Migrants in the UK’ and co-editor of ‘Community Research; from Theory to Method’, which will be published by Policy Press in 2011
Ben Cairns is the co-founder and Director of IVAR and Honorary Research Fellow of Birkbeck. He leads on IVAR's organisational support and strategic review work.
Marilyn Taylor is Emeritus Professor at the University of the West of England, Visiting Professor at Birkbeck and Visiting Research Fellow at IVAR.